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Famous for authoring Watership Down, Richard Adams' The Plague Dogs rivals its more widely-read big brother in storytelling, thematic development, and playful sophistication.

Just as mythology (and the telling of stories) supports the narrative of Watership Down, linguistic dialect (that of the English lake country) structures the confusion and flight of the dogs Rowf and Snitter from an animal experimentation ...

We watched this movie the other weekend. I always forget how much I love it. Yes, Natalie Portman's accent is a bit ropey sometimes, and John Hurt is a little OTT, but those minor niggles aside it's a fantastic movie.

Based in London, under the pall of a dictatorship, V for Vendetta tells the story of a terrorist (freedom fighter?) known only as 'V' who dresses all in black and wears a Guy Fawkes mask and has a penchant for blowing up public institutions. Then V meets Evey (Natalie ...

Well, today I spent fully getting back into my current obsession with classical music. Two new discs arrived in the mail:





Zelenka I have already discussed above... but I must say this latest disc is quite marvelous... and I am still impressed with the muscular, driving rhythm of Zelenka's music. Heinrich Ignaz ...

With summer having arrived I am on break from teaching and have a goodly amount of time to spend in my studio working on my own artistic endeavors (painting). Perhaps it is that feeling of freedom linked with a bit of remembered youthful rebellion that we all felt when the school year wound to a close... but for whatever reason, I have been spending a lot of time recently listening more to rock, jazz, gospel, blues and even bluegrass. Among my recent purchases are the following:

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Recently I spent some time skimming through some of my Saint Mystery magazines reading various short stories. I read some of Leslie Charteris' Saint stories to see how they hold up NOW. When I was a pre-teen they couldn't be beat until I discovered Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm (and the Nick Carter Killmaster series but that's a whole other better left unposted story). Young adult to the mid-40s found me looking somewhat with disdain at them as mystery and adventure stories but mellowness has set ...